How to Protect and Care for Your Child’s Teeth

For the 21st-century generation, acting “cool” is #1 priority. Unfortunately, healthy habits aren’t considered as cool nowadays. But that doesn’t mean that kids should have the opportunity to skip out on basic care. Dental health is definitely one of the “basic care” activities they should never avoid.

So the question is “how to make oral health care a cool activity again?”. The best solution is emphasizing its impact on your kid’s present and future by pressing on the points such as having a perfectly white smile, let’s say, for extraordinary Instagram photos. The habits you help them develop now will become a foundation for better oral health in adulthood. If you want your children to enjoy a perfect smile for a lifetime just make them follow these basic oral care steps:

Daily Brushing and Flossing

When your child is fully buried in schoolwork oral hygiene routine can be under the real risk of getting missed out. That’s exactly what you should avoid as a caring parent! Let’s never forget: the most important part of basic oral care happens at home while brushing and flossing regularly.

Proper Brushing

As a parent, it’s up to you to create a perfect dental care routine for your child starting from the early years: that’s how 2-minute brushing becomes an inevitable part of the day plan. Brushing for 2 minutes straight should become the first and the last thing of any day. The proper way of brushing is all about keeping it gentle: brushing too hard can have a really bad impact both on teeth and gums.

To make sure the brushing lasts for 2 minutes you can always count on a favorite song playing in the background. The better way, however, is using an electric toothbrush with a built-in 2-minute timer. Besides, they make brushing easier and fun. So don’t hesitate to get rid of your kid’s manual toothbrush and help them find the best electric toothbrush. Always consider your child’s color or cartoon preferences while choosing the electric toothbrush. Or even let them choose themselves. That will be a great start!

Proper Flossing

Brushing is essential, but it’s not efficient enough without flossing. No matter how hard you try, brushing can never remove the interdental plaque or all food leftovers from between your teeth. Ideally one should floss every time after each meal, but flossing at least once a day, after evening brushing is recommended by dental hygienists.

Children's teeth are no exception. Start flossing your kid’s teeth even when they still have their primary ones. As soon as your child’s teeth start to come closer and fit together (this usually happens between the ages 2-6), you can start developing the habit of daily flossing. Children usually get used to flossing around the age of 10, and it’s advisable to let them floss on their own.

It’s really essential to stress the importance of flossing, and the best way of doing so is flossing for them regularly until they’re able to do it themselves. In that way, when their permanent teeth start to come out, they will already perceive flossing as a routine.

Note that bleeding of the gums on the first days of flossing is a common thing, no need to worry. During the first few days, bleeding should stop as gums get used to it. In case the bleeding doesn’t stop, seek your family dentist’s assistance asap.

Before choosing a floss for your kid, some info will be of great help. There are generally 2 different types of dental flosses: multifilament floss (e.g. nylon floss or silk floss) and monofilament floss. It’s important to note that you can never label a floss as ‘’the best one‘’: ‘’whatever type you use daily is the best floss for you‘’ says NYC Cosmetic Dentist Thomas Connelly. If you buy a floss that your kid won’t use and just leave in the drawer, it is of no help. So the key point here is the regular usage!

Out of these two, the nylon floss is the most widespread one. It’s that standard floss which has been around forever. One of the main reasons for that is its low price. Plus it’s possible to get the nylon floss in every flavor your kid likes as well as with no flavor at all. Make sure the floss you buy is soft and flexible so that it’s comfortable and won’t hurt their teeth and gums. Never force the floss under the gums to avoid future unpredicted problems. Plus, don’t forget about the backsides of back teeth.

Regular Dental Care Appointments

The next step of a perfect oral hygiene routine is going to the dentist regularly. Having an appointment for your child every 6 months is all about prevention: tooth decay, gum disease and a lot more can be fully prevented in case of regular check-ups.

Visiting a family dentist can also prevent the future struggle of searching for the best orthodontic clinic if needed.

The period of wearing braces is one of the essential ones in your kid’s oral hygiene, so trusting it to a good orthodontist is as important as finding the best dentist.

Professional Dental Cleaning

Dental cleanings are not just about teeth whitening or having a bright shiny smile. Dental cleanings on a professional level are essential for removing dental plaque buildup from the surface of your and your kids’ teeth. Plaque bacteria develops very fast and, unfortunately, regularly.

Professional cleanings are performed by specially trained and licensed oral hygienists. In general, there’s an age limit of 18 years for teeth whitening as one should have fully developed permanent teeth to start whitening them.

Although using whitening replacement heads is not limited by age, it’s important to note that we recommend Glancette for kids as it’s the best whitening replacement head for removing stains. The latter is the most common reason for whitening at an early age. So you can get a Glancette for your kid, and a Pearlette or Charquette for you to make sure you got a 100% guarantee of having a family with stain-free and perfectly white teeth :)

At a hygienists’ teeth polishing begins after plaque removal with special scraping or ultrasonic instruments.

The process helps to get rid of discolored teeth, removes stains due to which teeth become whiter and makes it harder for plaque to stick to teeth.

Food Choice

Nutrition is one of the golden keys to the door towards better oral health! It’s really important to figure out what, when and how much your child should eat. Healthy eating is possible and even quite easy, the thing is just to find the right foods and try to diminish or exclude the unhealthy ones. So let’s get right into it!

Snacks

Every sugary snack leaves acid on teeth for at least an hour. Have you ever thought about it? The reason is the interaction of sugar and plaque bacteria: they create the acid which likes to stick to teeth. Well, but what kind of a kid doesn’t like sweet snacks?!

A solution is to limit the sweets your child consumes by putting in their lunchbox healthier snacks like fresh fruit, mixed nuts, yogurt or plain popcorn. Keep in mind that it’s always better to have 3 or even 4 meals a day than lots of snacks throughout.

Another option is making attractive and sweet bars and snacks with all-natural ingredients and healthy oils and fats, and make sure your kid doesn’t know the recipe!

Drinks

Nutrition is not only about eating: you can’t achieve a thing if you sweeten a healthy meal with sugary beverages like soda. Those types of drinks stain teeth at the lowest or can even become a reason for dental erosion. You can’t make your children not to drink them, we know that, but at least try to limit the amount.

Still water and milk are yet the best drinks for a daily basis. The other advisable drink is tea that contains fluoride, consumed without sugar, of course. As for boxed fruit juice, it’s recommended to drink it during meals and let the food take away all the sugar from your teeth. But if you catch your kids on drinking it between meals, try at least convincing them to dilute it with water.

Proper evaluation of the importance of proper oral care during childhood has helped so many parents in setting the best hygiene habits and not struggling with teeth and gum issues later.

Be sure your child will appreciate and thank you for your special approach to their oral health later.

There is not a single day to lose, start right now and set your own standards for your kid’s better future.

Brushette is here to help and accompany you through that journey to better hygiene starting from Junior dental care through all the other levels of teeth development. Entrusting us with your child’s oral hygiene will decrease their future dental emergencies to the minimum.

Brushette® is not affiliated with neither Philips Sonicare™ nor Oral-B® Braun; which are respective property and trademarks of Koninklijke Philips N.V. and Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company